Court grants bail to Sachin Waze in Goregaon extortion case

Dismissed police officer Sachin Waze has been granted bail in an extortion case involving former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh. The case has been transferred to the CBI. Waze was arrested in November 2021 and had sought bail claiming he had served half of the maximum sentence. Others accused in the case include Alpesh Patel and Sumit Singh. Waze was previously arrested by the NIA for his alleged involvement in the Antilia bomb scare case and the murder of Mansukh Hiran. He was dismissed from service in May 2021.

MUMBAI: A sessions court on Friday granted bail to dismissed police officer Sachin Waze in connection with an extortion case registered by the Goregaon police in which former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh is also an accused. Waze had approached the sessions court after the magistrate court rejected his plea.

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On August 25, 2021, the Goregaon police booked Waze, Singh and a few others after hotelier and civic contractor Bimal Agarwal lodged a complaint alleging that the accused threatened to register false cases against two bars owned by him and extorted ₹11.92 lakh, between January 2020 and March 2021.

The case was later transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on orders of the Supreme Court (SC) on Singh’s petitions.

Waze, who was arrested in this case on November 1, 2021, had sought bail from the magistrate court, claiming that he had finished almost half of the maximum sentence which could be handed down to him if proven guilty. The CBI opposed the bail plea on various grounds.

The magistrate court, while rejecting the bail plea, said that the charges for which Waze was booked were punishable with imprisonment of up to 10 years, and Waze was arrested on November 1, 2021. Thus, the accused had not undergone a detention period of half of the maximum imprisonment provided for the offence, and therefore, he cannot get the benefit of the concerned provisions of the law.”

Besides Singh and Waze, others accused who have been named in the chargesheet include Alpesh Patel and Sumit Singh, alias Chintu. While Waze is in judicial custody, Patel and Sumit are out on bail. Police are yet to file a chargesheet against two other accused in the case, Vinay Singh and Riyaz Bhati.

Waze was first arrested by the National Investigation Agency in March 2021 for allegedly parking an explosives-laden Scorpio outside Antilia – the south Mumbai residence of billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani – and the subsequent murder of the SUV owner, Thane-based trader Mansukh Hiran. Waze, who is also an accused in the Khwaja Yunus custodial death case, was dismissed from service in May 2021.